There Is No Lie In This World Chapter 45: The Girl Who Dreams

The sealed corridor breathed a silence that felt ancient, like a library forgotten by ti. Cold vapors curled along the stone floor that sohow felt like marsh. At the end of the hall, the final threshold lood - no door, no handle, just a seamless wall of shimring black surface.

Elune stepped forward, taking in a deep breath - preparing her encounter with a past she hadn’t known still existed. Sealed away.

Beyond it lay a door. Slightly open. As if the one inside was expecting soone to co. Just as it had been when Lin visited.

She stepped into a chamber bathed in refracted silver. The ceiling was nowhere to be seen. The walls arched endlessly into mirrored twilight. And in the center of the room, barefoot and motionless, sat a girl.

Her back was to Elune. Her dress hung like it was stitched from ash and woven air, and her hair shimred with a faint blue sheen under the strange light.

"Why you?" the girl said, without turning.

Elune’s breath caught in her throat. She stepped forward, voice soft, aching.

"...Because I loved you, too."

The girl turned her head slightly. Just enough to catch Elune’s reflection in a nearby pane. Her gaze was unreadable - not cold, but distant, clinical. Her lips tugged into sothing halfway between recognition and reproach.

"You haven’t changed at all. I bet you still trip over all the ti."

For a mont, Elune almost smiled.

"I do," she said quietly. "At least twice a day."

The air between them held the ghost of sothing gentler - an echo from when things were simpler. But it faded just as quickly.

The girl’s eyes didn’t soften. "That clumsiness used to make laugh."

"And I rember you used to laugh like it surprised you."

The girl said nothing.

Elune stepped closer, carefully, her voice catching on mory and guilt.

"I watched over you," Elune said. Her voice trembled. "We both did. Luc... she treasured you more than you knew."

"She sealed ," the girl replied flatly. "Is that what treasured ans now?"

Elune lowered her gaze. "We were told you had... passed. I never-"

"But you believed it." Her voice was quiet, but the bitterness sat heavy beneath the words.

"You never asked. You just went on serving her."

"I grieved you," Elune said. "You were like family to ."

"Then why didn’t you look for ?"

That cut deeper than she expected. She took a step closer, hands clenched at her sides.

"I never imagined she’d—"

"That she’d what?" The girl’s voice barely rose, but it cut like fine glass. "Seal away? Forget until it was convenient?"

"No," Elune whispered. "Not forget. Never forget. That was the problem."

The girl turned fully now, facing her. The light curved strangely around her fra, as though the room itself strained to hold her shape.

"I’m not the child she couldn’t forget," Saen said. "I’m the mory she locked away because she loved it too much."

A silence passed between them. Elune approached slowly, her boots not echoing at all on the mirrored floor. She studied the girl - Saen, though the na was not spoken aloud.

"You’ve been here... all this ti?" Elune asked.

"I’m not here," Saen replied, gently. "I’m everywhere they rember ."

Elune lowered herself to one knee. Her voice dropped to sothing tender. "Why Lin? Why now?"

The girl cocked her head. "Are you trying to stop ? You don’t think I deserve to be free after all this ti?"

"You an-"

The girl sighed.

"Think carefully, Elune. Luc has no pact with Lin, does she? That’s why you are worried. I’ll swap place with her. I will sign the pact."

Elune inhaled sharply. "But then Miss Roen will be-"

Saen’s eyes shimred. "I am a Roen. A REAL Roen."

"But you are also a Zhen."

"And I’ve been punished for it enough."

Elune shook her head.

"I’m really sorry what happened to you... all this ti... I never knew."

Saen’s face didn’t soften. "Don’t apologize. You served her, not ."

She took a few steps forward, and the mirrors humd faintly. The light bent around her like water bending around a stone.

"They didn’t ask if I wanted to co back," she said. "But now that I am... I see the path clearly."

"You’ll take her place," Elune whispered.

Saen’s eyes glead. "She’ll rest here. Dreamless. Just as I did."

Elune’s mouth parted, but no words ca.

"And once I walk free, I’ll sign the pact with Luc myself."

"No... if you sign, the Mistress will be bound to Zhen. She won’t allow herself to be shackled to their bloodline - not even for you."

"We will see about that, Elune."

Saen circled Elune slowly, her bare feet soundless on the mirror-glass floor. She paused by one of the panes, tilting her head toward it.

"They’ve made it easy," she murmured. "Lin was already unmoored. A na here, a photo there, a mory no one else claid..."

Her fingers grazed the mirror’s surface - the reflection rippled.

"They’ve been feeding her pieces of ," Saen said, turning back to Elune. "Soon she’ll walk and speak like . Dream like ."

"You’re allowing this?"

Saen shrugged. "Can’t I have a little dream of my own, for a change?"

"I’m sure the Mistress-"

"Poor Elune, she still has your heart," Saen’s tone was ambiguous. Elune couldn’t tell if Saen was mocking her or feeling sympathetic. Either way, this was the painful truth that Elune had to live with for the eternity.

Saen rose to her feet, barefoot on the mirrored floor that didn’t ripple beneath her. She seed taller now. Older. A specter pulled from ti’s pocket.

"But you’ll try to stop them," she said.

"I have to."

Saen laughed softly — not cruel, not kind. Just amused.

"Then hurry," she said, the tone laced with mockery. "Your Luc always did like impossible causes."

She began to fade, not physically, but in presence — like a dream dissolving as the mind wakes.

"Try all you want, angel. But you’re not the one being dread."

Elune looked into the mirrors.

The angel thought she caught a glimpse of Lin for a mont.